Health and Healthcare

Bing COVID-19 Tracker (10/18): Global Cases Near 40 Million

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: October 18, 2020 7:42 am

According to the Bing COVID-19 Tracker, global confirmed cases of the disease reached 39,681,253 today, up 430,168 from the day before. The total global figure for confirmed cases could hit 40 million in the next 24 hours. Active cases number 11,277,646, recovered cases number 27,293,615 and fatal cases have reached 1,109,992, after a one-day gain of 6,577.

The number of cases continues to rise quickly in the northern hemisphere, where winter is quickly approaching. In some nations in Europe, new daily cases have hit records. With most viruses, the rate of spread rises as people move indoors. This has been true of the flu for decades. At the same time, the southern hemisphere has not posted much improvement. Among the hardest-hit nations in the world are Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru.

The United States remains the country with the most confirmed cases, at 8,201,319, a 55,735 increase in a day. COVID-19 fatalities there stand at 222,513. The rate of the spread has increased sharply in the past two weeks, sparking concern that coronavirus deaths may top 300,000 by year-end. Dr. Anthony Fauci has said the spread will not be arrested until the average daily increase drops to under 10,000 per day, which will certainly not happen soon.

U.S. confirmed cases are concentrated in the largest states. California has 876,276 and Texas has 863,534. In Florida, there are 752,481 cases, and New York has 487,626. This list is the same as the states when ranked by population. Yet, some of the states where COVID-19 is growing fastest have small populations, most notably North and South Dakota. New York continues to have the largest number of coronavirus deaths by far at 32,959, about 15% of the national total.

Currently ranked second in the world based on confirmed COVID-19 cases, India has 7,494,746. That number grows by nearly 70,000 cases a day, which could put it ahead of the United States before the end of the year. The coronavirus death count in India stands at 114,078. Health care experts say that because of the size of the nation geographically, and its relatively primitive health care systems, more than 60 million people actually have been infected about eight times the official number. The Indian Council of Medical Research puts the figure as high as 63 million.

Brazil has a confirmed case count of 5,224,362. New cases recently have risen at a rate of over 20,000 a day. Its COVID-19 deaths number 153,690. As with India, Brazil’s figures are too low. It is nearly impossible to count cases in the nation’s interior. In the poorest parts of the largest cities, packed with impoverished people, the disease is also difficult to track.

Russia has 1,399,334 cases, and fatal cases there stand at 24,187. Most experts say the death count is far too low to be real. It may be that the government has kept counts down to make it appear it has the pandemic under control. Confirmed cases rose by 15,009 yesterday, among the highest one day counts since the pandemic began.

Six Latin American countries have a total of nearly 9.4 million confirmed cases. Latin America has been hit particularly hard. They are among the 14 hardest-hit nations in the world. Brazil is at the top of this list at 5,224,362, which puts it in third place in the world based on confirmed cases. Argentina ranks sixth with 979,119. Columbia ranks seventh at 952,371. Peru ranks 10th with 865,549. Mexico ranks 10th at 847,108. Chile ranks 14th at 490,003.